Abraham Maslow
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[edit] Introduction
Informal and formal education empower and enable learners. Think about the U.S. Declaration of Independence and its statement:
- We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
This is a very general statement. We empower people by providing and guaranteeing these rights, and we enable people by helping them to have the education and other resources to make use of these powers.
Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who thought very carefully about some of the same ideas, but from an apolitical point of view.
[edit] Maslow's Hierarchy
Quoting from the Wikipedia:
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. The concept for Maslow's hierarchy of needs work was based on Kurt Goldstein's organismic theory of personality ("The Organism,"1938).
- Maslow's theory contended that as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy."[1] Maslow also studied one percent of the healthiest college student population. While Maslow's theory was regarded as an improvement over previous theories of personality and motivation, it had its detractors. For example, in their extensive review of research that is dependent on Maslow's theory, Wahba and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described, or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all. Chilean economist and philosopher Manfred Max Neef has also argued that fundamental human needs are non-hierarchical, and are ontologically universal and invariant in nature - part of the condition of being human. Poverty he argues is the result of any one of these needs being frustrated, denied or unfulfilled.
Here, we are talking about needs and having these needs met. The argument might be that a person is empowered to the extent and to the level at which the person can meet or exceed his or her needs. Are there certain needs that everybody has? Are there needs that are quite dependent on one's culture, region of a country, country,or region of the world?
[edit] References
Maslow, Abraham H.(n.d.). Books, Articles, Audio/Visual, & His Personal Papers. Retrieved 10/7/07: http://www.maslow.com/.
